Ready,
Thank you for staying connected and for being part of my journey.
I'm not going to leave you out on that limb alone...I will come out there with you.
Here is what I have learned...I grew up in a family with a mother who was sick 90% of the time and my father was consumed with trying to keep her out of trouble and trying to keep our family together and cared for.
So, I entered into a family system where there was little guidance from a man in my life. Actually, he was usually tired and angry. There was no bonding with him. I did not want to be like him. He hurt me, and scared me.
I'm not going to try to dispute psychological theories...but I'll tell you what happened with me. I grew up afraid of my father...and I was molested by a man when I was around 9 years old - a stranger who was walking down the same road I was walking one summer day alone.
I desperately wanted to be with men and be accepted as a man and thought of as a man, and yet I was terrified of men. I had no guidance from my father in the things of being a man...there was no individual time with him...he did not offer me anything in the way of what it meant to be a man. What I got from him was his anger, and silence.
I was naturally somewhat quiet...an observer...and so the rift only grew between me and other boys my age. I was a lower/middle class kid among the upper middle class, and the differences between me and other boys whose mothers made sure they were dressed decently and hair combed, and whatever... it all became obvious. My mother was sick in bed. I did what I had to do to get out the door and catch the bus for school every day.
I never felt part of the group of guys...always different.
I had a hunger to be considered part of the group of guys, and then later in life, part of the group called "Men."
Yet, I could not see myself as a man, and did not feel like a man, and could not even refer to myself as a man. I had all the parts, was strong, and even athletic...but was never part of athletic teams, and was never "one of the guys."
I withdrew into myself...and when I discovered masturbation at 13, it just became another way I could separate. I made good grades, and liked music. I also loved running and swimming...but there was little my father and mother could do to get me involved with any kinds of sports teams. There was no money for it, and there was no time for it...and my parents certainly didn't have the energy for it.
The attraction I felt toward men was a hunger...a hunger to be a man.
When I was a senior in high school, I was studying Spanish and needed a good Spanish/English dictionary. I knew I could find one at the Family Book Store in the mall (that was not the name of it, but that was the image they tried to convey). I still remember standing in the reference section looking for a good dictionary....when right immediately in front of me on the shelf there in the back of the store was a magazine. Someone had stashed it there behind the reference books.
This magazine was (I learned later) a very well-known gay magazine....just FULL of guys that looked like gods....oh, and all naked and usually erect. It was like I had been dipped in acid. I saw it, and it completely pulled me in. It was my FIRST contact with real pornography of any type. I felt like I had just been blasted by the heat of a furnace when I saw it, and I picked it up and quickly leafed through it.
My first instinct was to just roll it up and tuck it into my coat (it was winter, and I was wearing a heavy coat). Sweating, and heart pounding, I walked up to the counter with the dictionary I needed, and bought it. I went straight out to the car and sat there and gulped in the pages of the magazine. I masturbated right there in the parking lot in the car.
There were phone numbers in the back of the magazine that I could call and hear gay recordings....and it pulled me further in.
It was a confusing time in my life....I ended up in a few encounters in rest areas, and a couple that I met on phone lines and met in person...but it was always stuff that left me feeling ashamed and empty inside.
When I was almost 30 years old...I decided to investigate further into what was happening in my life.
I'm skipping years of turmoil here...and won't go into all the details...but what I came to understand was that there was a big part of nurturing that I never received as a boy and a young man.
I had to stretch myself and actually cross over into some of the previously "forbidden" areas of men that I felt I could not go into before....and I made myself enter into the world of men. I volunteered to be an assistant coach for one of my son's athletic teams. This of itself was a terrifying thing for me...but it was one of those "forbidden" areas that I thought I could never really enter. The funny thing is, there was a mix up in the administration of coach assignments. I found out the day before going to the first team meeting that I was THE head coach. To make things even more gut wrenching...I found out that my assistant coach was this big manly dude named, REX. Really.
I'm telling you, I felt like I was going to vomit as I drove to the first practice. But, I had done my homework, I knew the game and I came prepared with drills and the stuff we would need for practice. I'll never forget, though, a turning point when at one time while I was talking, the boys were excited and getting noisy, and Rex said, "Ok boys, listen to Coach Scott." I heard him say that...but NEVER in my life had I even DREAMED of hearing the words "Coach" and "Scott" paired together.
It slammed me...in a good way. I was like..."See? this is YOU he is talking about. You. You were robbed of this an a lot more...but now it's becoming YOU....because you stepped out and took a risk."
I found out that Rex knew every sport there was under the sun EXCEPT the one were tackling together. So, I had a chance to really lead. It was a huge turning point in my life.
What I found out was that I am a man among men. I can stand shoulder to shoulder with other men and be who I was created to be.
The mystique that surrounded men began to dissipate and I no longer felt separate from men, but felt a part of the group called Men.
I have an identity as a man that I never used to have.
It has been a journey for me to grow into this identity...and I really love it. I am completely turned on by women, and especially my wife. I admire other men for different traits that they have, but it has been a journey for me.
The more I identify with men and who I am as a man, the less I feel any sexual attraction to men. I no longer feel like I have to gain my own masculinity through another man's masculinity. That's what it used to be like, however. It was as if I had no real authentic masculinity of my own, and I was always hungering for it from another man.
I have learned about working out...and feeling my own body and seeing my own body as that of a man...and feeling how good it feels to work out. To become comfortable around other men, in the gym, on the court, in competition, in talking...whatever. It's something that I never dreamed I would have, but I have experienced it and continue to experience it.
I was not meant to hunger after other men sexually...but there was a lot in my life that set me up for it, and it was a path to destruction for me. It was destroying me.
So, that is why I say I am walking away from it.
I know it is all very complicated...and there were days when I felt terrified of walking out on the ball field, terrified to step out...but I did, and I'm glad I did.
There is more...but this is all I will share now.
But, I want to say that I am glad to be here...among men who are making the choice to stop running to port and m. The reward is in freedom from p&m.
Ready....I'm really really glad you are here. Thank you for going out on a limb. I don't mind talking about all this, and I'm glad for your words and your presence here.
P&M is not an option.
